will virus infect other machines in the same wireless network?

No, I mean that by reducing paths, bright ugly desktops when root etc., they discourage users from running as root. About the only one I'm aware of that defaults to a root user is Linspire. I guess they tried too hard to be like Windows. ;-)

And no, not all users need to run as root (or admin in Windows). For example, a user in an office environment generally has no need to run as root or admin. While I know the root password for my home computer, I only have to use it when installing or configuring something. It's not necessary for daily use. There are a few methods of allowing a user temporary root rights in Linux, such as su, suid, sudoers etc. In fact, I use sudoers on my notebook, so that I, as a user, can switch from ethernet to wifi or static to DHCP address etc. At no time do I have to use the root password to do this.

What do you mean? No "su" command? No SUID or SGID mode settings for executables?

Someone who has installed any variety of U*IX on their desktop MUST run as root for any number of reasons, and many applications MUST run SUID root.

In fact a great many Linux users run as root.

James Knott wrote in news:rs2dneDjOePDmA7enZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@rogers.com:

The fact that it can be infected is the point Windows or not and I have seen reports where Linux was attacked by a virus even through a browser as the user with the happy fingers clicked.

Duane :)

James Knott wrote in news:3bWdnUPIYvZavw7enZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@rogers.com:

What do you think we are stupid? We know all of this as it's been mentioned 1,000 million times. The bottom line is that the Linux O/S can be attacked just as easily as the MS O/S in the hands of the clueless. I am certainly not being attacked using the MS O/S by malware using the Windows O/S on the road or my home office/network set-up. And on top of that, that Linux O/S is being attacked in the hands of the professionals. Once again, none of these O/S(s) are infallible as long as a Human Being as anything to do with them.

Duane :)

Some viruses propigated by walking through a WIndows workgroup or domain. If you belonged to one, it would attempt to infect you. Others used shared network drives.

Many of the viruses that are coded to spread across the network spread across the Internet. By that I mean the infected PC actually walks through every IP address in the world attempting to infect every Interent address. Theoretically that would be 4.3 billion addresses, but in reality less than 3 billion are used. More than 30% of the addresses on the internet have not been issued yet.

So whether you are connected wired or wireless doesn't matter. If the virus has a infection vector open to you, you are at risk. DiGiTAL_ViNYL (no email)

And now, almost 20 years later, there are more than 70,000 Windows viruses, worms, and other exploits circulating but still only a handful of *nix exploits.

Windows was not designed to be a networked, multi-user system -- these were grafted on at a leter date. *nix OTOH, was designed for such an environment and is inherently less vulnerable to such exploits.

The Morris worm took advantage of *nix programmers and administrators of that time not practicing strict privelege separation. These days you'd be hard-pressed to find commonly used server software that doesn't run at reduced privleges.

Yes, there are. They're for scanning files and mail on linux servers for